Friday 13 October 2017

Another Nadal Federer showdown ?

The ATP tour has moved to Shanghai where the tournament has been headlined by 7 of the worlds top ten ranked players.

Having reached the quarter final stage, we have lost third seed Alexander Zverev in a wonderful battle with Juan Martin del Potro (16). Each player was broken only once in the match which was over in less than two hours but enabled a scoreline of 3-6 7-6(5) 6-4.

The top two seeds, Nadal and Federer, have been untroubled in reaching the final eight, neither dropping a set in their respective two matches.

Nadal has lost just seven games.and his serve is yet to be broken this tournament. A seventh title for 2017 is highly likely at this rate.

Grigor Dimitrov [6] will be Rafa’s final 8 opponent while other quarter finals are:

Marin Cilic (4) v Albert Ramos-Vinolas - expected quarter finalist Thiem (5) was ousted in the second round by Viktor Troicki.

Viktor Troicki v Juan Martin del Potro [16] - Troicki also removed John Isner (12) in round three.

Richard Gasquet v Roger Federer (2) - Federer would have been surprised not to see form player David Goffin (8) as his opponent but the Belgian lost his second round match to Gilles Simon. Gilles in turn lost to Gasquet in a lengthy three setter.

The women are in Hong Kong during the WTA Asian leg of 2017 and the quarter finals make for unusual reading.

Apart from losing Venus William (2) and Aga Radwanska (4) in the second round, to Naomi Osaka and Samantha Stosur respectively, Elena Vesnina (5) exited in round one courtesy of Luksika Kumkhum, ranked 130 from Thailand.

Shuai Zhang (8) also lost before the last eight and we had the unfortunate walkovers given by Elina Svitolina (1) and Caroline Wozniacki (3) before they even hit a second round ball.

Svitolina carried a groin injury into Hong Kong, suffered in the final loss to Garcia in Beijing, and Wozniacki cited an elbow complaint.

Two seeds are left in the quarter finals:

Nicole Gibbs v Jennifer Brady - all US clash

Lizette Cabrera v Dasha Gavrilova (7) - all Aussie battle

Qiang Wang v Samantha Stosur

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (6) v Naomi Osaka

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